Summer 1952, and fourteen-year-old J.W. Valentine wishes the world and everyone in it would leave him alone. His life so far has not gone well. His defenses -- anger and cleverness -- have only gotten him in trouble. And now the state has sent him to a farm for rehabilitation, something he is determined to resist. He finds in the nearby town resentment and suspicion and, out on the farm, Mac, a man who may know something of value, and Cassie, the girl who will haunt him for the rest of his life. Amid the distrust, there is discovery, and through it, J.W. Valentine tells a moving story of love.

"Scenes and characters from J.W. Valentine will linger in your consciousness long after you finish this remarkable novel." -- Dawn Martin

From Amazon:
"What a great read! This book draws you in with its seemingly simple story and strong narrator and leads you through a surprising chain of events. A coming of age story that's firmly rooted in traditions of the genre yet easily transcends them through beautiful and poetic storytelling. To quote JW: 'My feelings were tumbling over each other.' I highly recommend this book!"

Events

Host, Poetry Events at Molloy College
Poetry Events are free and open to the public.
Reception Room, Kellenberg Hall
Molloy College Rockville Centre, NY
www.molloy.edu
for more information: (516) 323-3260 English Department

"September," "Chekhov, For Beginners" and "Billet Doux" -- First Place
7th Annual Poetry Competition
sponsored by the Cultural Arts Center
at Mid-Island Y/​JCC, Plainview, NY
(funded by the New York State Council on the Arts)

Praise for Something Like Life:

"Poetry at its best." -- Janet Brennan

"A beautiful book! -- Charles Portolano

"Barbara Novack's poetry changes my perspective. She notices things we don't. She brings me out of my problems and opens up a wider world to me."
-- Deborah Nagler

"The light may fade and darkness come, but Barbara Novack's poems will live on forever." -- Roger Dupre

"Barbara Novack's poetry has a clean freshness not commonly seen these days." --Maggie James

"The pleasure I feel every time I read Barbara Novack's poems is that each one is fresh and filled with new-found insights. I compare each one to a wandering sunbeam cavorting along the surface of a crystal bowl causing cascades of erupting glints, beams, twinkles and bits of rainbows." --Bess Marcus

"Barbara Novack is a writer of destiny who sparks the reader's essence. I treasure her work, its power, gentleness and care. She is a poet beyond the ordinary, a great writer." --Dawn Martin

"Each of Barbara Novack's poems brings me to a place of emotional truth and clarity." --Deborah Nagler

"Barbara Novack's poetry exudes warmth and humanity. I have never heard poetry with such humanity." --Denis Gray

"Barbara Novack is an incredible poet with incredible insight into life's situation and emotion." --Lorraine Conlin

"Barbara Novack's poems, filled with quiet, emotive language and varied and expansive images, express a crucial awareness of the world. She is a keen observer of people and the images come most passionately from her heart and her mind. As I read her poems, I connect with her response to nature, people, and intellectual ideas and she brings me in harmony with my own experiences. I love reading her poetry over and over again." -- Anne Dupre

"I have read Barbara Novack's poems and I had no idea I would enjoy poetry this much. I thank her." -- Patrick Noonan

"Barbara Novack's gift is that she can capture an experience in a few lines of carefully shaped verse, and in the process communicate her sense of the moment's emotional quality. Poetry that can delight its readers should be encouraged, particularly in a world that sometimes seems to have lost its appreciation for the well-chosen word and the beauty of thought expressed through imagery." -- Kathleen Conway

"Barbara Novack's sensitive and observant eye, her alert and perceptive mind, her delicate and precise hand have recorded much worth sharing and much worth pondering." -- Robert Kinpoitner

"Among Barbara Novack's many strengths as a writer are her eye for the telling detail, her ear for the cadence of natural speech informed by song, and her soul that always makes the human connection. She makes her people and the world they inhabit -- the world we inhabit -- come alive. Her poems remind readers of the value of words and the worth of the authentic voice." -- Patti Tana

"Barbara Novack's poems are wonderful in their clarity, inner calm and deep understanding." -- George Wallace

"It is an honor to read Barbara Novack's poetry." -- Gayl Teller

Barbara Novack is Writer-in-Residence at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, NY, where she is also a member of the English Department. She is an award-winning writer, and she conducts highly regarded writers' workshops in the New York metropolitan area. In addition to workshops, she presents many popular programs on creative writing, memoir writing and poetry and gives readings of her poetry at various metropolitan area venues.

As Writer-in-Residence, she has founded and co-sponsors, with the Molloy College English Department, the Poetry Events at Molloy College series, which brings contemporary poetry to a wider audience.

Barbara Novack is co-founder and literary editor of Mendicant Order of Poets (mendicantorderofpoets.org), a forum for contemporary poetry.

She is a member of the Authors Guild and The Academy of American Poets, and is listed in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers and in Who's Who and Who's Who of American Women.

She has appeared on Channel 12 Morning Edition discussing the value of exploring creativity in writing workshops.

Founded by Barbara Novack, in conjunction with the English Department, Literary Events at Molloy College include Poetry Events and Author Afternoons, which bring contemporary poets and writers to a wider audience.

Note: Poetry Events have an open reading following the featured poet(s) unless otherwise noted.

Unless otherwise noted, all Literary Events are free and open to the public, with no RSVP required.

2006 March: Poet Barbara NovackMay: Poet Daniel Thomas Moran

Responses to events:
"... a warm and nurturing atmosphere ..."
"... a cross-section of talent ..."
"... a diversity of voices ..."
"Consistent with its commitment to public service, Molloy College, a wonderful venue, showcases and nurtures our local poets and writers."
"These readings are inspiring and entertaining and open up poetry to the general public."
"Without poetry, so much is denied to a community, although it may not always be missed. Events like these prevent that loss of soul."
"Long may these gatherings prevail!"

POETRY ALBUM:

EPHEMERA

I was the wild tree
that grows in sidewalk cracks,
braving life that will not yield:
I would not yield.
I was golden yellow light,
summer,
an intensity tolerated because the days are long
and the nights are balmy
and the breeze is soft on naked skin.
Summer presses but does not push.
I was the storm that quick-darkens
and flashes light
and rolls its sound across the sky,
breaking solid blocks of heat
to pebble drops
on windowpanes.
I was calico,
a madness of color
that makes people smile.

I was youth,
merely a mood
that changed.

The tree was pulled up by the roots,
the street repaved.
Golden yellow light faded
to autumnal dusk.
The storm aged, white and silent
and cold.
And the calico was cut
to a pattern.

I remember the fireflies
I used to catch and bottle
to own their light,
to save a beauty
that gasped and died.

And only now
can I empathize.

(c) Barbara Novack
first publication Avocet

A poem for Jen and Aaron.

A LESSON IN QUANTUM MECHANICS

All possibility
all possible states
cling together
in quantum superposition.
Traditionally, it is the act
of observation
that forces the particles
to choose
one state
or the other.

The aisle is long
the sides chosen
the particles to meet
at the end point
there to agree
to be
one state
not the other
under watchful eyes.

We have existed
in ambiguous states
a wave function where
all possible histories
all possible futures
all possible presents
have hovered together
and now
we are colliding with rock-solid
reality
a world that will
define us
forever.

All it takes, they say,
to collapse the wave
is a tiny disturbance
and the coherence of possibility
becomes unglued.

All it takes
is a tiny disturbance.

They say otherwise
we could possibly exist
as simultaneously
dead and alive
lingering
suspended.

The watchful eyes
could decide it,
but
all it really takes
is that tiny
disturbance.

and we choose
one state
over the other.

(c) copyright Barbara Novack
first publication Slant

On the moments before sleep.

IN THAT TWILIGHT BEFORE SLEEP

Things are only different
from what they are
in that twilight
before sleep
when possibilities rise
and reality drifts
away.
It is not sleep yet
where dreams attach meaning
to random brain impulses,
a fireworks display of neurons,
but sparks fly upward,
catching the blue-gray haze
smoke smudging
the twilight sky.
It is not sleep yet, but
it is dreaming
and I hear words
and see images
and attach meanings
I prefer
to the sparks
that could never
be fire.

(c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

On unexpected outcomes and possibility

BOOMERANGS COME BACK

In the emptiness of space
an astronaut threw a boomerang
out
expecting
a continuing journey into the void
into the vastness
neverending
lost in time and space.

Into our emptiness
your words thrown out
into the void
of neverending
lostness.

The boomerang came back.
No one knows why.

There is a point
where time and space
converge.

You stand at the door
hand on the knob
looking back.

This poem serves as the thematic introduction to Rehabilitation Medicine and Thermography (Impress Publications, 2008) by Drs. Mathew H. M. Lee and Jeffrey M. Cohen, which explores the many applications of thermography (heat pictures) in both science and art. Drs. Lee and Cohen use thermography in their pain research, with Dr. Lee's work focusing on acupuncture's effects on pain. His thermography pictures have been exhibited in art galleries and are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum.

SEARCHING FOR PAIN

In the scientific search
pictures are taken
of heat and cold
showing places full glowing,
pulsing with red-orange-yellow warmth and
places where the life force circulates less,
cooling to blues.

There is Design
and there is design.
It is all in
how you look at it.
In the search for pain
the scientist plans and studies,
analyzes,
makes a model and a machine,
takes heat pictures of patients.
And he sees
in his search
mystery
and beauty:
we are art by Design
but rarely
is the mysterious design
visible.

And even more rarely
does the scientist have
an artist's eye.

The following two poems were included in the anthology Songs of Seasoned Women, edited by Patti Tana (Quadrasoul, 2007).

THE PAINTERS

The painters come
with their cans and brushes and rollers
to cover the lost colors
years have resolved to a wistful shadow
of what might have been.

I selected whites this time,
shades of purity,
searching for my truth
in the tenuousness
of untrammeled snow
in its moment in
the melting sun.

The painters come
and my artifacts huddle together
beneath splattered dropcloths
and I wonder who
did a room in midnight blue
and who in sharp citrus yellow
and who in peachy pink.
I wonder at the hope behind
the rainbow colors.

I huddle with the artifacts
in a dark void of silence,
lacking the passion of midnight blue,
citrus yellow, peachy pink.

They tell me, these painters,
it will be bold
when it is done.
I know
it is only
the blank page
to be won.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication The Cape Rock
1/​4/​09 The New York Times: "Region's Poets Convey a Sense of Place" by Tina Kelley

THAW

The glacier recedes,
leaving tides high
and dangerous
and striations on the land,
tracking.

We have not spoken to each other
these many weeks,
occupying accompanying space,
repelling like the same-charged polarity
we were.
Sparks no longer flew.
It was the cold time,
winter of the soul,
all soft sentiment turned hard
and breakable,
easy to shatter.
And we stood on that thin sheet of slippery surface,
each convinced of walking-on-water rectitude
while our weight fissured the glaze.
We stood our sinking ground
resolutely.

I do not know what changed our minds.
Perhaps it was not quite being able to remember
what started it
this time.
Perhaps it was just becoming too easy
to slither past the other.
Perhaps it was the mirrors
we'd turned to the wall.

This morning I made your coffee
and buttered your toast.
This morning your shower towel
wasn't on the bathroom floor.
This morning we saw our reflection
in each other.

Perhaps it was the fear
of what we were sliding into
that pulled us back.

And the glacier recedes,
leaving tides high
and dangerous
and striations on the land,
tracking.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

This poem received the Editor's Special Recognition Award as best poem in the 2007 In Other Words poetry anthology.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Today everything in the regrigerator froze.
The gallon of milk was a white ice block,
the soda cans bulged ready to pop,
pregnant with the moment.
It is April, spring, when life bursts open;
it is daylight savings time, when days stretch
like a rubber band
to hold all the growing things and expand,
pushing night into its dark corner
of dustballs and thoughts of the not-done.
And yet,
the food is frozen,
the nourishment unconsumable.
There is nothing in the waste of winter held,
refusing to yield.
The orange shattered when I dropped it.
The eggs were solid. I shook them to be sure.
I do not know if freezing spoils them.
But other eggs are frozen
later to be mixed
to yield, perhaps,
other pregnant moments.
I stare at the glaciated abundance
and wonder
if I have been reminded, this April,
of the cruelty.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Long Island Quarterly

This poem was a winner in the 2007 Long Island Poetry Collective/​Xanadu poetry contest. It appeared in the 2007 issue of Xanadu.

HUMAN FORM WITH LIGHT

We are
skin shell and bone
structured to articulate
and retain shape,
holding all the parts
in place;
this dwells in darkness
I cannot know.
And we are
sparks flying upward
synapses firing
electrons jumping,
and Edison creates incandescence
and Einstein's e
flies light speed relatives
and we are
lanterns and lighthouses
and could be
Christmas trees
if we but
allowed the joy.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Xanadu

A poem about why we write. It is used in poetry classes by Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr, and in literature classes by Dr. Jeffry Massey of Molloy College.

A DEFENSE AGAINST CHAOS

We need to tell stories,
to join the fragments of existence
and make the chaos coherent;
we need to name
the flowers, trees, birds,
people,
to note differences, make distinctions
between,
to make separate.
Divergent needs
circle,
swirling a whirlpool of darkness
that sucks meaning to a black hole core
of oblivion.
But another need
like a seed
takes root in this most uncommon ground;
the harshest season
bears its fruit.
In defense against
anguish and anarchy,
we gather
around the fire, in the light,
keeping darkness at our backs,
keeping chaos at bay,
telling stories
and giving it all
our name.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first published in Nassau Review

THE EXPLORERS

I stand in the shower
wash my hair
two three four times
run the soft cream soap suds
over hill and valley
surfaces
a lunar terrain
alien and apart
and devoid of life.
"One small step for man,"
the first explorer said.
"Magnificent desolation,"
the second added.
They traveled over her surfaces,
these explorers,
and never knew her at all.
Never knew if moisture
would tamp down the dust
seep to the center
and soften the soul.
Never knew if those
hills and valleys
could bear the weight
of more
than their boots.
That knowledge
was not
their intention.
She was just
one small step for man and
magnificent desolation
to explore.

I feel beaded droplets dripping
in the valley
where my heart beats.
If they had rested there
they might have returned
with more
than stones.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Oberon

The editors of Nassau Review, commenting on the universality of the experience described in it, selected this poem immediately and unanimously from over 3000 world-wide submissions.

BROWN PAPER BAGS

Tearing a brown paper bag
smooth, thick, dense
I hear a rattle as it bends in my grip
and a dull sound as it shreds,
releasing a memory redolent of
forest-fresh wood pulp
and September crayons
and bleach-clean new notebooks.

In the evening
bathed in golden incandescent light
the brown paper bags from the grocery store
were measured on the kitchen table against the open texts
and carefully cut
and smoothly folded down on the long inside
and over the cover edges,
a pocket miraculously appearing
into which the text neatly slipped

until all the schoolbooks sat
in their matching brown covers
with their subjects neatly lettered on the front:
arithmetic, spelling,
social studies, English--
an orderly world
of smooth sameness
carefully divided.

Now the supermarket bags are plastic
and grocery stores are extinct
and the children's books have stretchy covers
with Pokemon or Spider-Man,
or all things sports or Disney,
store bought, prefab and flexible reflections
of their time.

As perhaps ours were, too.

It was the '50s, after all,
that orderly world
Eisenhower and brown paper bags . . .
and Elvis on the horizon
to change it all.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

On the big joys in small poems.

THE VIRTUES OF A SHORT POEM

The virtues of a short poem
appear
in its rainwashed clarity.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Creations Magazine

A poem about what we value.

PROGRESS

When I was a child,
deer came down
to my aunt's kitchen window.
Now from her kitchen window
I see other kitchen windows.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Creations Magazine

A memory poem.

NOVEMBER

The damp smell of earth at night
and woods so close,
pine and crisp country air,
and the gravel crunches beneath our feet
as we walk to the house,
white shingle with green trim,
from the matching garage
across the path that leads
down the hill and around the house,
down past the well house fortress
defended so many times
from attacking snowballers,
down to the garden
where mown grass was piled high
and we dove into its sweetness
and into the orchard
where we climbed the trees
and picked the apples
that made the jellies, jams and pies.

The lightbulb on the porch
in its white ceramic fixture
casts a warm and golden glow
on this frosty November night,
welcoming the children in
from the cold.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

The editors of the Nassau Review selected this poem unanimously from over 2000 submissions.

REJECTION

Leaves fall hard and shatter,
their colors preserved
like Tiffany glass.
You lie among them, stricken, shattered
broken on the season dream of spring.
"I thought you were the one," you cry.
"I thought you were the one."
I hoped you would be; my unspoken reply.
But I accept the not of it;
you whine.
Then you scramble to your feet, brushing shards away,
straighten to your height
and prevaricate, saving face.
"I never said what I said, never
thought what I thought, never
dreamed what I dreamed."
Or words very similar.
It is sad.
As if I don't remember you saying, "I love you."
You want to erase your error, and
I understand.

I didn't want to hurt you, but I had to.
There is no other way
to tell someone
the season is fall,
the future is barren and cold,
and the leaves are falling and shattering
like Tiffany glass.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

A poem about lost opportunity.

ELEGY

Scattered among the family, like leaves fallen
from the tree,
images in black and white
declare: I am.
Unlike the recent color photos
fading to nonexistence
like a dream,
these remain.
They are reality,
sharp and clear.
But who are these people
so staunch and proud,
dressed in their finest clothes
and posed so stiffly for their permanence?
And who are the others
at their ease?
They smile for the camera
that knew them
on front porches and stoops,
in living rooms and kitchens,
places that were home
somewhere.
There are no names or dates or places
written on the backs
of these family photographs.
These people trusted memory
for their immortality.
And now no one can remember
who they were.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication The Cape Rock

Poems with a bit of magic.

SACRAMENT
(On the Southern State Parkway)

On the tightly curving parkway, I
dizzy with speed
tense with route newness
exits and merges,
suddenly see a swirl
of giddy rose petals
floating from a car up ahead.
They dapple the roadway,
christen my car
and fill me
with blessed mystery.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Long Island Expressions
1/​4/​09 The New York Times: "Region's Poets Convey a Sense of Place" by Tina Kelley

SOMETHING LIKE LIFE

Gray cocoon sky
Chopin on the radio
snowflakes on the windshield
I warm and cozy
in my car
navigating the road's
curves and bends.

OF MY FATHER

The click of the camera
caught my father unawares.
He was pointing, his arm
obscuring his face.
It is a version of my father
before I knew him,
before he was my father.
He sits on a rock outcropping
above the trees
somewhere in the country
of his time
and points
to a distant place
a distant time
he saw
and I knew.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Tapestries

Portland Branch, National League of American PEN Women Honorable Mention for "The Rose," a poem about a remarkable lush flower blooming quite proudly in November.

THE ROSE
(at the Sacred Hearts
of Jesus and Mary,
East 33rd Street, New York City

Against a black railing
in the November chill
a perfect rose, blood red
and grinning in the sunshine,
basks.
The wrought iron railing
leads to the red brick rectory,
but the rose leads
to heaven.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Avocet

First Place Poetry Honors for "September," a reminiscence capturing a quintessential moment with my father, "Chekhov, For Beginners," a poem about how we become who we are, and "Billet Doux," a poem that shows love notes come in many forms.

SEPTEMBER

The pear tree in the neighbor's backyard
drops its crop on the driveway
with hard thumps
like baseballs hitting a mitt.
But the pears roll, uncaught.

Once my father climbed to the top of the garage
where the pear tree branches stretch over the peak
and perched there, straddling it, plucking pears
and tossing them down to me. I
caught each neatly,
brown-green balls of sweetness, small and firm,
slapping into my cupped palms
and deposited in a large paper bag at my feet.
The pluck, the toss, the catch, the drop:
we had a good rhythm that sunny September afternoon.
And when the bag was finally full and the game ended,
my father lit his pipe, set it at a jaunty angle,
and sat secure and serene
up high against the bluest sky.

The pear tree in the neighbor's backyard
drops its crop on the driveway
with hard thumps:
the pears roll, uncaught.

I stand at the kitchen window
and stare out at the branches
so high against
the emptiest sky.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

CHEKHOV, FOR BEGINNERS

Chekhov said
throw out the first three pages;
it takes that long
to get to the beginning.

And I may say
put aside the first three decades
sweep away their debris
cast off versions of the self
that should have molted
like early outgrown skins.
Much was misunderstood,
misinterpreted.
The guidebook for those places
has been reprinted,
the new edition totally revised.
History, after all,
is just memory compromised,
smoothed out,
its sags stretched to cover the chasms
of existence.

So put them away
in the safe place
where the fading photos stay
and know
it took all that
to get to
the beginning.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

BILLET DOUX

When I got down to
the breakfast table
this morning,
I smelled the sweet soap
scent
of your shaving cream.
I sat in your chair,
drank from your cup.
You were gone,
as our night,
but you lingered,
a sweet surprise,
like a love note left
for me.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

"The Poetry Reading," editors' unanimous choice, was selected from over 2000 submissions.

THE POETRY READING

Playing
with words
teasing
with meaning,
it's all a toy
for these baby boys
who pretend to know
how the world
goes.
With adolescent pretension
and post-acne angst
and their 50's Beat black turtlenecks,
the pose
grows old
as they will
soon.
Then
they will learn
to smile.

Copyright (c) Barbara Novack
first publication Nassau Review

Books
J.W. Valentine (JB Stillwater)
Something Like Life (JB Stillwater)
On a Sea of Sighs (Michael Gaily Books)
A Rainbow in the Sand (Michael Gaily Books)
Still Life (Michael Gaily Books)